Suu Kyi delays Indonesia trip amid Rohingya crisis

— By FPJ Bureau | Nov 29, 2016 01:20 am

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Yangon : Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi postponed a visit to Indonesia after protests there over her country’s bloody crackdown on Rohingya Muslims and a thwarted plot to attack its Jakarta embassy, reports AFP. Thousands of desperate Rohingya have flooded over the border from Myanmar’s Rakhine state into Bangladesh in the past week, making horrifying claims of gang rape, torture and murder at the hands of security forces.

The Nobel laureate has faced a growing international backlash for what a UN official has said amounts to a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Suu Kyi’s government has denied the allegations, saying the army is hunting “terrorists” behind deadly raids on police posts last month. Foreign journalists and independent investigators have been banned from verifying what is happening in the north of Rakhine state bordering Bangladesh. Hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets last week in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, calling for the government to break off diplomatic ties with Myanmar.

On Sunday Indonesian police said they had arrested a third Islamic State-linked militant accused of plotting to bomb Myanmar’s embassy in Jakarta. Suu Kyi had been due to visit Indonesia after a trip to Singapore from November 30-December 2, but a senior foreign ministry official said the trip had been delayed. “We postponed the Indonesia trip because of the problems in Rakhine and also northern Shan State” where the army is fighting ethnic insurgents, said deputy director general Aye Aye Soe.

“It will be arranged in the near future,” she told AFP, denying that the delay was due to security concerns. Some 30,000 Rohingya have fled their homes in Myanmar, where even in normal times they are denied citizenship, healthcare and education and have their movements severely restricted.

Dhaka says thousands more are massed on the border but it has refused urgent international appeals to let them in, instead calling on Myanmar to do more to stop people fleeing. On Monday border guards pushed back eight more boatloads of Rohingya who were attempting to cross the Naf River to southern Bangladesh.